The present invention relates to a program creating/supplying apparatus, method, storage medium and computer program for creating and supplying a program, composed of music data, picture data and/or the like, that can be delivered via a communication network. For examples, the present invention concerns a technique that enables reproduction of a program comprising a mixture of plural types of content having different characters and easy creation of an original program precisely reflecting an intention of an interested user (listener/viewer).
Typical examples of the conventionally-known systems for distributing broadcast or other types of programs, comprised of music or picture data, include radio and television broadcasting systems. However, because radio and television programs are sent unidirectionally from broadcasting stations, interested users or audiences (listeners/viewers) are unable to listen to or view their desired programs at their desired time. Thus, “Internet broadcasting stations” have recently come on the scene as a new form of program distributing facility that is different from the existing radio and television broadcasting stations. The Internet broadcasting stations each distribute any of programs stored somewhere on a communication network, at an interested user's request; that is, on the basis of an interested user's request entered via a terminal (client) such as a personal computer (PC), the client station is connected to a World Wide Web (WWW) server by way of a communication network, such as the Internet, so that the client apparatus or terminal is supplied with a program of music piece or video (picture) data stored previously in the WWW server and then reproduces the program on the basis of the received data. Normally, for data delivery using a communication network, each WWW server delivers the data to a client apparatus or terminal on a streaming basis in such a manner that reproduction of a requested music piece, picture and/or the like can be initiated before reception of all the necessary data has been completed by the client terminal. With such an Internet broadcasting station, listeners/viewers are allowed to listen to or view any desired programs at any desired convenient time.
Program content to be distributed via a communication network can be diversified by just making the program of various different items of content. For that purpose, the programs have to be made to contain a plurality of items of content having different characters (e.g., different data formats) in a mixed fashion. However, with the above-mentioned Internet broadcasting stations, all the items of content in each one of the programs are constructed to have a same character (same data format). Namely, the Internet broadcasting stations today can not provide programs of diversified content due to the fact that the conventionally-known program creation/reproduction apparatus used in connection with the Internet broadcasting stations and the like are unable to reproduce programs containing a plurality of types of content having different characters in a mixed fashion (e.g., programs which comprise a mixture of plural types of content prepared in different data formats, such as content of MIDI music performance information, audio sounds and pictures).
Further, with the conventionally-known program creation/reproduction apparatus, interested users (listeners/viewers) can not create their own original programs by optionally combining a plurality of items of content.